Another Mother's Son (23 page)

‘Time out,' Mrs Anstey says and raises a hand in the air.

Gervase rolls his eyes. ‘We haven't clapped.'

‘Go ahead,' Mrs Anstey says.

A spatter of applause follows, like a brief shower of rain on a roof.

‘Thank you all for being such a lovely audience,' I say. ‘And thank you, Gervase. That was a really nice speech.'

The students who attended – five girls and Gervase – are already on their feet and heading towards the door of the sixth-form common room.

‘Don't leave anything behind,' Mrs Anstey calls. She slings her satchel over her shoulder.

I watch the retreating figures in black-and-white uniform.

‘What did I just tell them?' Mrs Anstey points at a hairbrush and an aerosol can of deodorant under one of the grey polypropylene chairs. She switches the lights off. ‘Thank you again for giving us your time. That was really very entertaining.' I can smell the woman's tapestry jacket. Eau de Oxfam, Jude called it. She was endlessly, casually cruel about the teacher's clothes. The brooches made of felt in the shape of flowers, the boiled-wool skirts. Diane Anstey will know, of course. She is no fool. She won't care what the girls think of her and her long grey hair. ‘You know your way out, don't you?' Mrs Anstey smiles and ushers me through the door.

Jude, as Mrs Anstey, sat on our kitchen table. She moved from buttock to buttock to get comfortable and began to swing her legs. Slender though she is, she gave the impression of possessing a wide bottom and a large skirt. Antsy kept me behind after the lesson, Jude said. She asked if I meet up with any of the girls outside school. I said, She's a nice woman. ‘You look a bit peaky. I hope you're not “on Facebook” far into the night.' Jude's imitation was scornful.
Are
the girls unkind to you? I asked. ‘They're a cliquey lot but they are beginning to thaw, aren't they? Some cohorts are worse than others for bitching.' Mrs Anstey will know, I said. She's had years of experience. ‘Well, if it's a boy, you are spared hours in Primark.' Jude sighed Mrs Anstey's sigh of mock exasperation. ‘Get along and have your lunch. I'm looking forward to mine. A nice pork sandwich made from last night's roast dinner. Bob Anstey does all the cooking.' Jude slung the imaginary satchel over her shoulder. She gathered up the imaginary books and ring-binder of notes. She stretched out her arms, one up, one to the side, like a lollipop lady. ‘Out you come, my love. Get weaving. I'm going to lock up.' Ross shuffled from foot to foot through the performance. He glanced at Jude from under his hair, captivated, and appalled by the time she wasted with me. He longed to get her back upstairs but she wasn't ready to go. Lorna, that thing you said about your friend Yorick, liking to be shut up in small spaces … Jude began. I've already told you. Erotic asphyxiation, Ross cut in.
Did
I say that? Chris Orrick wasn't a friend, darling. He was a member of the public. Being shut in is erotic? I don't get it, Jude said. It's not some mild spatial preference, Ross snapped back. What would be the point in that? He listed the paraphernalia that might be involved. Lorna, is it, like, widespread? Jude ventured. Don't ask her, Ross said scornfully. She doesn't know anything. Basically, you have to be a loser. They swivelled eyes at each other, secure in their plain desires.

I hear the click of the key in the lock; Mrs Anstey's footsteps retreating. The classrooms I pass are deserted. They look as though they have been targeted by a weapon that wipes out human beings, whooshes chairs to an upturned position on tables and leaves a trail of detritus; ties, blazers, scarves, shirts, football boots, A4 paper stamped with footprints or screwed into balls, pens, pencils, crisp packets, sweet wrappers, apple cores, soft-drink cans, banana skins and half-eaten filled rolls. The desolation is palpable, and the silence – though someone in an upper room plays the same phrase repeatedly on a recorder.

I finally find an exit; a door that is hanging off its hinges and partly blocked by industrial-sized bins. As I walk through the school car park, I feel something like nostalgia for the ugly collection of buildings behind me. I assumed that I would feel nothing but relief at seeing them for the last time.

‘
HOW WAS YOUR
talk?' Richard asks.

‘Oh, it was fine. They were sweet, really. Mary de Silva wasn't there, although she was the one who fixed it up. Mrs Anstey, who
was
there, never mentioned her. I'm not sure Mary de Silva exists. Her manifestations are semi-miraculous. I should organise a pilgrimage to the sites where she's appeared.'

Richard Watson and I are lying on his bed. One curtain is drawn, one open. The type of fabric you might find in a hotel but we are not in a hotel. Mottled background with lozenges. The prosaic light of afternoon fills the room. Through the window, ajar at the top, I hear cars pull up and cars drive off. SUVs with bull bars front and back. Tyres scrape, doors slam. There is a pre-prep school further up the street. The boys wear St Custard's style uniform. Caps with badge, blazers with badge, short trousers, long socks.

‘Off they go to their second homes for the holidays, the little beasts. I was scared.'

‘Why?'

‘I thought they might turn on me. Jeer at Ross. Mutter threats under their breath. But it wasn't like that. They listened and smiled at my feeble jokes. I was introduced as Lorna Parry. They might not have made a connection with Ross. Gervase Lupton is the only one who knows me – and he's pretty self-absorbed. Oh, I called Dirk Neerhoff.'

‘And what did he say?'

‘Frances has left with her handsome doctor. I think it's for real this time. Poor Jude. Dirk wants us to meet up.'

‘Will you?'

‘Are you worried? I haven't fixed a date. I might glean a little information though I expect he'll just talk about Frances. I did find out something. He drove Ewan and Jude to Northaw Woods for their run on Saturday morning. And picked them up again afterwards.'

‘Oh, for Christ's sake.'

‘I know. Spoon-fed.'

I am on the inner side of a bed that is pressed up against books. They fill the wall from floor to ceiling and are mostly biographies and memoirs, wide as tombstones. I have never spent the night here. Richard kindly listens to me. I soon realised that he has a low tolerance for home reportage and little interest in the young. I edit accordingly which is good discipline for me as it stops me from splurging, or offloading as people say these days. I lop off different parts of a story according to the listener. With Richard, I confine myself to the known because he is quickly bored by supposition and I find it restful to spare myself what might be and what might have been. He laughed heartily when I told him about Ross's malicious communication. He said that Ross had added a cheering gloss to an otherwise pitiful tale and that he wouldn't at all object to being falsely remembered in black net stockings. Better than the truth, he said. This was all quite refreshing for me. Richard was brought up Roman Catholic and taught by monks. I think I can see where he is coming from.

I recall Miss Virabyan who taught drama at my old school; a subject, along with dance, that has been struck from the curriculum at Lloyd-Barron Academy. After an evening performance of
A Town like Alice
directed by Miss Virabyan, a man with an owlish expression and a full beard came up to her. He lunged and kissed her. It was not much more than a peck on the lips, fattened up by the force with which he ran into her, but, hyped up with the excitement of having been on stage, my friends and I soon turned it into a sloppy, face-eating kind of kiss and had the beard rummaging in every part of Miss Virabyan. Her hair was a true black and her skin pale as milk against the purple silk shirt that she wore on special occasions. Day after day, we embellished the story, transforming it into a sexy, yucky soap opera, more compelling than anything we produced for English homework. Our silliness had no afterlife – which was a matter of good luck. Liz Savaris and I went to school in an innocent decade. We were part of the oral tradition. It was still about memory.

I could ask Liz if she remembered the bearded-lover saga but the story is dead. Miss Virabyan overheard her own name among giggles. No harm done.

I prop myself up on my elbows. The sheet that covered me slips down. From this position, I view the red bricks of the mansion block opposite that clash with the curtains. A taxi passes. The road is peaceful again. The schoolchildren have gone home.

‘Are you leaving?' Richard asks.

‘Yup. Better be off. See what they're up to.'

SOME ESSENCE OF
Ewan remains, together with an absence as clear edged as the outline of the furniture against the white walls. The eaves slope steeply, restricting the usable space. To the left and partly under the slope is a low divan bed; to the right, a rectangular Formica table in use as a desk. The scene disconcerts me. It is as if I have stepped into a mock-up room in a museum of domestic life that is not quite right. I have seen it too often. A closed laptop, a pile of jotter pads, pots of pens and pencils, a halogen lamp angled so low that, like a heavy head, it almost hits the table. But the detail is overdone; two mugs contain residues of coffee, a fork is encrusted with something sticky, the teaspoons are stained. The first sheet of the top jotter pad is blank, and the second, though the underlying design shows dimly through. The third is a drawing I know well; the thin paper so minutely worked over in biro that its surface is twilled and ribbed like a shiny textile. The intricacy of the marks on the paper is shocking. A hundred different kinds have been used, each as meticulously replicated as embroidery stitches on a piece of fine cloth. But this is not fine cloth; it is the cheapest kind of paper and the drawing implements, the most basic ballpoint pens – the kind my father uses for the crossword puzzle. They stand in a pot on Ewan's table, bronze tipped, clear sided with the ink visible as blood in a cannula, in the standard colours of black, blue and red. So much time and effort has been spent using throwaway products. The discrepancy is a giant V-sign to something or someone. I recognise an act of undermining. The artist desperately seeks disapproval.

Alan Child is half in, half out of the door of the former walk-in stationery cupboard on the first floor of Lloyd-Barron Academy. Jude Bennet-Neerhoff aims her phone at him for the first time. He carries a grey plastic chair with metal legs. On his back is a small rucksack. The shot is not clear. He wears, in my mind's eye, the slippery lightweight jacket he had on when I met him at the sixth-form do in September. He was standing by the projector with his back to the film that no one was watching. I introduced myself. Lorna Parry, Ross Doig's mum. Parents and teachers circled around, downing the wine and, by then, showed signs of inebriation. It was dark outside and the overhead lights were on. Drink had been spilled on the carpet and crisps dropped and trodden into fragments. Noise levels were high. The atmosphere in the room had become both cosier and more rancid. I could tell he was ineffective. He lacked star teacher quality, the magnetism that is close to sexual allure and can occur in people you would never fall in love with. I just hoped he would be reasonably competent. His hand was damp and grasped mine in the wrong place so that my rings crunched together. He leant forward to speak, as we were up against a group of mouthy girls, and said – quite loudly in my ear – Are you going to tell me how wonderful Miss Bhimji was? Oh dear, I said, have you had to put up with that? The students have to try too, you know, Alan Child said. It's not just down to the teacher. Ross might as well not be there. He catches up on his sleep, he makes no contribution whatsoever and then five minutes before the hooter goes, it's all – So what was the essay title, sir? This Alan Child glossed with a silly sing-song. Clearly, he was no mimic. I'm glad to hear Ross is polite, I said. You know, it's only the second week of term. He's probably still in holiday mode. Mr Child took a step back into the beam of the projector and for a moment, a white school shirt and striped tie flickered over his face. I'm on your son's side, Mrs Doig, he said. He was hurt. Praise and complaint are the currency at school events; all of them – pupils, teachers, parents alike – want to hear how well they are doing. I felt suddenly old. I had cornered him and he, perhaps having been trapped several times by raptorial mothers and fathers eager to quiz him, had decided to land the first blow. He was too young and too inexperienced to have grasped the partisan nature of parenthood.

I hesitated, choosing between walking away and trying to make a bad situation slightly better. I looked past one of Mr Child's flexing shoulders and caught sight of Ross sidling between the art-display boards. I waved, trying to signal discreetly that I was ready to leave. He pretended not to see me. Are you coping, man? Hunter called out. Your mum wants you. He grinned, though his mouth was stuffed with a sandwich. Ross jabbed a finger upwards, in a fuck-you sign, that he modified into an upturned claw. He mouthed that he would meet me in the car park and disappeared. I apologised to Mr Child for the interruption. I was tired but I put on a bright voice. I asked him about the summer holidays. He had not done anything much, it turned out, and neither had I. He seemed to relax a little. I told him that Ross had travelled to Spain with a friend and that my middle son had gone diving. I said I did not go away because I was worried about leaving my eldest son on his own. I said I liked London in August. People drift off, the shadows grow longer and everything slows down. I don't know why I mentioned Ewan. Normally, I will not speak of him. Alan Child looked physically quite different, but something about him reminded me of my eldest son. I should be trying to make him smile, I thought. His more engaging qualities might emerge. But I ploughed on. It's not just holidays, I said. Every day when I go to work I worry and I don't know what I'll find when I get home. Alan Child said his mum had pestered him to get a job and he'd got one but that wasn't enough. ‘Is it a friendly school?' He put on a well-meaning voice that was more convincing than his imitation of Ross. He said she kept asking if he liked any of the teachers.
Women
teachers. She didn't understand about pressure. While he talked, his eyes met mine, as though he had bumped into me. He paused. His gaze veered off. It was strange, in school, to be having a real conversation. Both of us disclosed our anxious thoughts. We talked for about twenty minutes and then Simon Petridis came up, determined to discuss Evie: My daughter had excellent reports from your predecessor and of course the A star at GCSE …